The present invention relates a method for designing a flow device.
The documents cited in the References section of the present application describe related technologies.
1. Introduction and Discussion of Background
The present invention is related to the design and construction of flow devices and especially turbine and compressor blade channels.
In recent years substantial efforts have been made to introduce inverse design tools for airfoil, turbine blades and vane channel, and other flow devices for which the optimum combination of aerodynamic forces and losses plays a crucial role. For an adequate overview of the state of the art the reader is referred to work by Jameson et al. [3], Giles and Drela [4], Dang and Isgro [5], Dulikravich [6], Pandya and Baysal [7]. An overview of applications to current turbomachinery design is given by Jennions [8].
It should be understood that this list of publications on inverse design methods is far from complete. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that formulations of the Euler equations using two stream functions have been previously used (see Turner and Giles [9], for example). However, with the exception of genuine inverse methods (Keller et al. [10], [11]) that have been proposed for certain two-dimensional flows, the xe2x80x9cinverse methodsxe2x80x9d that are presently used to arrive at an optimum design of three-dimensional flow devices are not really inverse. In general xe2x80x9cEvolution Strategyxe2x80x9d, genetic algorithms or simply Newton""s method are used to guide an extensive series of flow calculations for gradually varying geometry toward some kind of optimum.
According to certain aspects of the present invention, a method for designing a flow device comprises the steps of (1) defining the physical properties of said flow device, and (2) deriving from said physical properties the corresponding geometry of said flow device by means of inverse flow equations.
Still other objects, features, and attendant advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from a reading of the following detailed description of embodiments constructed in accordance therewith, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.